Awesome, not saying Equal Rites isn't worth reading, but Wyrd Sisters gives you the core of the Coven. I'd go read it after Lords and Ladies if I was doing it over (it does need to be read it prior to I Shall Wear Midnight at the very least).

So I received this email the other day:

Quote

Hi Nick,

We are interviewing author Terry Pratchett for the Goodreads monthly newsletter. I am asking his readers to submit questions about his upcoming science fiction novel written with Stephen Baxter, The Long Earth, his past work, and anything you're curious about in general. If you send me a question, we may be able to include it!

* You received this message because you gave 5 stars to a book by Terry Pratchett. To participate, please respond to this message with your question by Sunday, May 13.

I was wondering about plot lines or characters he's thought of but never been able to use or characters that he's wanted to revisit but never found the place for.

In doing more research to see when the next book in The Long Earth series will be released, I came across Choosing to Die. Incredibly sad. (EDIT: Not just that Terry won't be with us much longer, but because the documentary does a good job of letting you put yourself in that situation. It's a scary place to be, and I marveled at the bravery of those in the film). It's good to see he's still writing and seems to be doing ok, but The Long Earth is an amazing book, and I very much want to read more in that word.

In fact, I think I have to say that I enjoyed it even more than most Discworld books (which I love dearly). The pace is a lot different. It gives you time to settle in and explore a whole new world(s), just as the characters are discovering and exploring new places. Really makes you feel that sense of manifest-destiny that the settlers must have felt. Much different than the quite well established Discworld. And The Long Earth takes the time to really sit down and think about how these fundamental changes to our world would effect how people act and what they would do, instead of having a specific message in mind and then trying to create world around it that ends up failing to feel human.

I wonder if Terry's decision to bring a partner on for this book had anything to do with his knowledge that he doesn't have long here, and that the idea is bigger than a single book. In any case, it worked out wonderfully, and I recommend the book to anyone in this thread who has at least a slight interest in science fiction.

In doing more research to see when the next book in The Long Earth series will be released, I came across Choosing to Die. Incredibly sad. (EDIT: Not just that Terry won't be with us much longer, but because the documentary does a good job of letting you put yourself in that situation. It's a scary place to be, and I marveled at the bravery of those in the film).

Just watch this on YouTube, brings up way too many conflicting emotions for me. Having watched 2 family members die from cancer and one from Alzheimer. Alzheimer is the worst, it's bad for everyone the years it takes for the persons memory to go, but then the time after that the person is gone but their body lives on for years, making it worse for everyone else in the family.

Oooh. She's written some good video game stories and she's contributed to some articles and interviews on Gamasutra about the writing process that were really insightful. I think she'll do fine with Discworld.

I love the Discworld, it's been a constant part of my life ever since "Die Farben der Magie" (the colour of magic) came out in Germany in 1985. Back then I already was a fan of Douglas Adams and had even read the English original of the Hitchhiker's Guide, but it was the Discworld that later kept me reading books in English (and that, alongside Star Trek and Babylon5 (the original videos were released about a year before the German dubs got broadcast over here) turned English into my "second first language").

Pratchett writes the strongest female characters I ever came across in any fantasy story - from Tiffany to Esmeralda Weatherwax, they are brilliant.

What makes me re-read the books about once every three years or so is of course the fun I have with his characters and stories, but also the deep insight Terry has for what it means to be a human - even if he sometimes uses Dwarves and Trolls to explain it. His characters are alive and the Discworld ought to be a friggin real place, because it WORKS.

Read Wyrd Sisters instead. Equal Rites is a beta run with the characters.

To me Equal Rites is mostly a kind of prequel to the Tiffany Aching stories - with Granny Weatherwax having to deal with a young girl and all that. Also Eskarina - the girl - later re-appears in Tiffany's storyline.

That's one of the things that got me hooked early on - you *constantly* run into old friends, so to say. In the beginning it was mostly Death and CMOTDibbler, but there's Nobby and Visit in Hogfather, Vetinari having his fingers in all kinds of stuff, Lu Tze is brushing some dirt in some corner and so forth.